9 Months!

And another belated monthly post... oh well, better late than never I guess!  Kiera is definitely more of a handful now that she is mobile, but we just love it.  What a FUN age!  Joel and I literally say to each other about 10 times a day, "She's the best" and "I just love her SO much".  Being a mom is the best thing ever.  : ) 

Kiera had a 9-month doctor's visit so we have stats...

Weight: 19lb 7 oz (50-75th percentile)
Height: 27 inches long (25th percentile)
Head Circumference: 17 inches (25th percentile)

Here's what she's been up to...

She is still wearing size 3 diapers and a mix of 6-12 and 12-18 month clothes.

Kiera had her first taste of wasabi this month, NOT intentionally!  We went out for sushi and while we were chowing down on our dinner, Kiera decided that the bright green wasabi looked tasty so she stuck her finger in there to grab a taste.  Joel noticed right away and grabbed it and swept it out of her mouth and I'm pretty sure I scared her by jumping up and grabbing her more than the wasabi actually hurt her mouth.  Only a few moments of crying and she was over it.  Phew!

She is definitely crawling now!  She is ALL over the place and can crawl from room to room.  If we leave her in one room and go to the next she likes to follow us.   And she is so proud of herself.  : )

When she goes to sleep at night or down for a nap, she loves to open up the plantation shutters next to her crib and look out into the courtyard of the condo.  She will usually look outside for awhile before laying back down and going to sleep.  Joel commented the other day how hilarious it must look to the neighbors across the courtyard to see a baby standing there looking out.  haha  She still sleeps ~8pm-7am or so and takes two 1.5 hour naps.

She LOVES to talk and makes all sort of vocalizations.  She loves to imitate noises she hears like trains, coughing, clicking noises, animal noises (she can do a dog & a cow), and just babbling.  She still loves to say mama the most!  Along with the happy vocalizations she has started to vocalize when she's not a fan of something.

Her absolute favorite thing to do is walk around the house holding onto your hands.  She would do it all day if we let her.  She pulls herself up and is cruising around holding the furniture but much prefers holding your hands and exploring the place!

She has mastered drinking water out of straws and sippy cups.  We started with one of those straw cups where you can squeeze it to help make the liquid go up the straw, but she showed us within a day that she was capable of doing it herself and the normal straw sippys were just fine.

She is eating lots of finger foods.  She would prefer to eat anything with her fingers to eating baby food from a spoon.  And she still loves to pick up small things off the floor and try to eat them... requires frequent vacuuming!  She still uses both hands to eat, but we noticed that she often picks up food in both hands and then closes the right one into a fist, continues to use the left one and then at the end of the meal there is inevitably some food hiding in the right fist.  : )  She is on the same eating schedule with milk 4 times a day and 2 solid meals.

She likes to stand on her own for short periods of time.  Once she is stable next to her table or holding onto something she will let go and see how long she can stand alone. 

She started waving and clapping which is absolutely adorable (but can be hard to capture on film)!

She is really enjoying the touch and feel books, although she really likes to taste them!  So strange, but she likes to lick or bite the dog's fur, etc in the books!  What a goofball...

And finally, she cheered on the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl victory!  She got lots of use out of her cheerleader dress (it was her Halloween costume)!